Iris Yamashita’s City Under One Roof is the first book in the newish Cara Kennedy mystery series. Kennedy is an Alaskan peace officer, drifting through Alaska. She is drawn to the tiny town of Point Mettier when a local teen finds a severed hand and local law enforcement is stumped. Or, they claim to be. It’s off-season, and everyone in Point Mettier lives in the same building. So, whose hand is it? Someone in the building has to know. 
Kennedy quickly becomes stuck in town, both because of a closed roadway and because the case may have ties to her own past. If she can, she wants to keep her personal story to herself. But, she has to earn the trust of the locals, both within law enforcement and without. She has to reveal something of herself.
In that way, Kennedy fits right in. No one ends up in Point Mettier to fulfill a lifelong dream; everyone is there because they’re running from something. Secrets are the norm. The Alaskan setting works well for the geographic and psychic isolation that the residents experience. City Under One Roof is some amalgamation of a bleak western, Scandi noir, True Detective: Night Country, Twin Peaks, and the last season of the comedy The Detour. Until the end, the reader doesn’t know whether characters are merely eccentric, bluffing, clueless, or something more sinister.
There were times when I thought this would be a three-star book; I thought Yamashita was telegraphing too much. However, I was wrong. The story twisted and unlocked things I wasn’t expecting. That shouldn’t have been so surprising to me since Yamashita is an Academy Award-nominated screenwriter (Flags of Our Fathers).
Audiobook is the way to go with this mystery. It has an ensemble cast, and all of the narrators understand their roles well.
The second Cara Kennedy book is already out, and I’ll definitely be reading it.